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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Primeval

00:28 / 05.03.07

Is there a thread for Primeval at the moment? I'm always loath to start a thread with something as fragile as a 'has anyone seen it' and 'what did you think', but I don't really know what else to say at the moment...

01:10 / 05.03.07

I always cringe when shows about badly rendered dinosaurs launch as most shows featuring same are pretty shite-tastic, for some cosmic reason. I was happy avoiding this until I saw a segment about it on Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe which made it look pretty entertaining. I'll wait for the inevitable DVD release in a few months time before watching it, though.

Is it any good though? Anything resembling an arc-plot, or is it just plenty of dino-of-the-week shenanigans?

06:43 / 05.03.07

If you like seeing former S Club 7 poppettes in a selection of pastel-coloured panties every single week, then this is the show for you.

The dinos aren't too bad, either.

Janean Patience

07:03 / 05.03.07

If you like seeing former S Club 7 poppettes in a selection of pastel-coloured panties every single week, then this is the show for you.

Which poppette?

Oh please let it be Bradley.

miss wonderstarr

07:57 / 05.03.07

I believe it's Hannah screaming out for more (ooh-hoo).

Janean Patience

08:05 / 05.03.07

They've got to add Big Brother S-Club racist bully suicide attempt agoraphobe Jo for the next series. As some kind of primordial monster trying to stop the development of thinking, civilised beings in the Lost Valley. As the blighted embodiment of anti-life, putting out cigarettes on the fish who crawl onto the land.

She's a born monster. She could be the next Servalan.

21:30 / 05.03.07

I had hopes for this, they weren't particularly high hopes, but hopes they were.

As far as Saturday evening entertainment goes, it's not as bad as Crime Traveller, which really is damning with faint praise. It's probably up there with Bugs with its cold and humourless adherence to cliche. Which probably sounds a lot harsher than I actually felt about it. It's OK, you know. Better that than the Price is Right, You've Been Framed or 101 other light entertainment/quiz shows that used to dominate ITV's saturday night line-up.

Unfortunately I think the channel's other recent foray into dino-land, Prehistoric Park had a more engaging and innovative plot, even if it relatively simple.

But I take it as a good sign that ITV even comissioned it at all - ITV has shown an increasing comittment to drama recently and that can't be a bad thing - I hope it brings them some audience share and revenue...

08:40 / 06.03.07

It actually does seem to have a semi interesting arc plot in the form of understanding the anomalies and working out what the lead's wife has been up to through time, but it's quite slight so far. Certainly it's entertainng enough to stand up to Torchwood only without all the hard in and bisexuality in extremis.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

10:01 / 06.03.07

I keep trying to watch this every week, and then finding myself either distracted by something else or falling asleep, which probably isn't a terribly good advert for the show. However somehow I persist in trying to watch it despite this, so on some level it must be capturing some of my interest even if I'm not sure why.

10:14 / 06.03.07

Last episode was actually quite good, though it did make me rather wish the series featured Conor's geeky buddies hunting down the dinos instead of Henshall, Hannah, et al.

'Dodo's don't have teeth!'
'Yes...but what if it was...an attack dodo?'
'My God...just how evil are these people?'

18:30 / 10.03.07

and then finding myself either distracted by something else or falling asleep

I found myself fiddling about in the kitchen half way through, and didn't mind terribly. At the same time, though, I found it entertaining and considerably less irritating than Torchwood despite the girls in lingerie geekilation.

I got myself back from the kitchen, though, just in time to hear someone say "so you're sure they don't eat mammals, then?" as they prepared to tempt the big bird back through the anomaly. Huh? Didn't it eat up a golfer at the beginning, or don't they count?

20:34 / 10.03.07

The golfer wasn't killed by the big bird thing they were trying to lure back to the past but by the tiny swarming bird things that they disposed of in the kitchen explosion.

20:48 / 10.03.07

Phew. Must've been a kitchen moment. Still, I'll have another go next week.

21:18 / 10.03.07

Doesn't this get repeated on sundays a la X-factor: the perpetual waste of life?

All Acting Regiment

01:50 / 11.03.07

What animals have they had in it? Were they exactly the same as the ones in prehistoric park?

11:36 / 11.03.07

Nah, they've had a couple of made up ones as well, like Rex the mascot and next weeks thing from...

spoiler...

oh who cares...

THE FUTURE!!!!!

It had to happen, didn't it?

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

15:24 / 11.03.07

Yes, there is a Sunday repeat - I'm half watching it right now. My liking of the show as just been upped by a scene in which a character is geting stuck into Oblivion - the scen had the Oblivion music and everything. To agree with what others have said, it definitely is a good deal less annoying than Torchwood - but that's not because it better. Ib my opinion it's certainly not, it more that I don't really care whether Primeval is any good wheras I want Torchwood to be the best show since Angel and thus my slightly unreasonable expectations cause me to be annoyed when it isn't.

09:00 / 12.03.07

Primeval's like margerine. Homogenised, does the job, rather bland and doesn't leave any aftertaste in your mouth.

Torchwood, on the other hand is like Piccalilli (sp?). It has lots of unidentifiable and weird looking wobbly bits in it that you feel should probably not be in there, it's overall rather unpleasant smelling, gives you indigestion, but you can't help spreading it on your ham sandwich week after week.

Er. I think I killed the analogy there.

Anyway the thing I found hilarious about Primeval was how they set up this intriguing arc about Dougie Henshall's missus being lost in time, then when he actually finds her, she's like this appallingly badly written B-movie villain. It was like he spent years married to The Master and didn't realise it.

I think it's thin, diverting but ultimately rather poor.

09:40 / 12.03.07

It's the best dinosaur show on ITV on Saturday night at the moment, though.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:12 / 12.03.07

To agree with what others have said, it definitely is a good deal less annoying than Torchwood - but that's not because it better.

I think that's abour right, and I can see Miss K's argument exactly - Primeval knows what it is - lightweight nonsense not that different from a British Stargate: SG1: utterly unchallenging running-and-shooting tosh. Whereas Torchwood was a near-insane mixture of adult themes, gritty realism, dodgy set dressing, cyborg badgers and horribly awkward shagging, with pretensions to being grown-up, mainstream-accessible sci-fi.

As such, I've enjoyed what I have seen of Primeval, despite the often dire acting and the fact that even now I cannot identify any actual character traits in half the cast beyond their outfit choices, and the MoTW episodes appear to be the actual plot arc rather than disruptions _to_ the plot arc. I won't feel I've missed much if I am out on a Sunday, though.

12:17 / 12.03.07

Bah. You're all wrong and when series three comes around and it's totally fucking awesome you'll all have to eat your words and stuff. They went to other times and they look sufficiently weird and non Blake's Seven Quarry style that they could have convincingly been other worlds. That's cool. Take that Doctor Who.

13:38 / 12.03.07

I know that Connor Temple, I do

13:44 / 12.03.07

Also: Sax breaks Primeval love nest wide open

And:

Give me a second series, you shits

07:02 / 13.03.07

With a second series, they might have to have an actual story arc develop - the whole MoTW thing would surely wear thinner than a Kate Moss nanosculpture if stretched over another twelve episodes.

Either that, or they just keep making the monsters more and more ridiculous: This week, they fight Deinocheirus! This week, they fight Leviathan! This week, they fight Galactus! This week, they fight Cthulhu! And, in the series finale, they fight God!

19:49 / 17.03.07

Her from S Club versus God would totally be an episode i'd watch. You know I'm clearly rooting for a second series, because I think it's perfectly entertaining and because I think there's enough going on here to darken it or make it more complex now you've got the punters in the door and excited. Buffy Series One was sort of crappy, with a couple of episode exceptions.

All Acting Regiment

12:14 / 18.03.07

Or, you could watch the Dinosaur Season on UKTV History and have a oodles and oodles of Walking With Dinosaurs and Ambling With Really Big Toads until you're good.

19:41 / 18.03.07

Now come on, guys. If you've seen the last episode, you can't possibly tell me that it didn't get you in the slightest bit engaged? I mean, it had future monsters, time paradoxes, revisiting the first episode in some interesting ways and a bit of a cliffhanger. It's not bad! Come on! I can't be alone here...

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

19:49 / 18.03.07

The bit when the time loop connected up was quite spiffy, yes. I think this was a best episode so far - I'd certainly be happy for it to get a second series, especially if it's going to play with time-line alteration a bit more, rather than restricting itself to prehistoric monster of the week.

On reflection I think the short length of the series is something of a problem for a show of this type - The structure of the plot seemed to be handled pretty much as an US 20-odd episode series often would be ie 6 episodes in we're only just starting to get into the meat of the show and get engaged, and in a US show we'd have lots more episodes to build on that - here though it's gone for a year once we get to that point.

20:58 / 19.03.07

I did like the last episode a lot. Everything seemed to have been turned up a gear, from the dialogue to the characterisation to the plot. The cliffhanger at the end was extremely good, especially with the final shot of the episode where we don't know what's going on.

11:41 / 20.03.07

On which note, I would love it if the second series gets a major up in its SFX budget, and the opening episodes are completely riftworlds: anomalies are breaking out all over the place, vikings are marching down Oxford street, T-rexs are rampaging all over the home counties, Edinburgh has been taken over by weird cyborg soldiers from the future, and the government are fighting a desperate rearguard action against all of it while the Monster Squad try to find some way to shut it all down, all the while bickering over Steven and Helen's infidelity and trying to prevent Cutter from going on a mad, Ahab-like quest to find Claudia.

Also, someone should lose an eye. Nothing says 'desolate, post-apocalyptic future' better than a good guy with an eye missing.

16:48 / 20.03.07

I want Helen to be completely out of order with the rest of them. She should be bouncing around the early twenty first century left right and centre. I think the reason she doesn't get in touch with him is because it takes her years to work out how to get back to roughly the same time. Lost in the past, a year later finds her way back only for it to be five years after she's left. She sees him with someone else, resolves that she can't change the timeline easily without getting screwed, gives up on him, bounces back to the past, back to the future three years in the future, etc. etc.

We should not be clear when we see her whether she's done the stuff that happened last week yet, or whether her timeline is completely different. Behind the scenes they should be working out her path through it all as completely separate from the rest of them. Her 'series' would be something like Season Three Episode Two, Season One episode Five, Season Four episode Two etc. THings that she did with one of them this week she'll have no memory of next week. That would be cool.

11:35 / 24.01.08

It's back and two episodes in, anyone else watching?

I really enjoy this, like the new angle and some interesting new plot points are being handed about.

Claudia Brown is back...sort of, and Helen's around again.
Plus something of a mystery has been introduced in the second episode with Lester's minions appearing and disappearing where they shouldn't.

Looks like they have been taking a leaf out of Torchwoods books however.
They have swanky new HQ, (apparently best part of screwing with the universe is your digs escalate in value), they have an idea what they could be against each week and yet the main gang stumble into each situation less prepared that last season.
No grunts to back them up and they leave all the tech at home!
Let's work as a team people!!
Hopefully it will progress as well as last year.
A bit quicker would be nice too.

16:13 / 24.01.08

I saw the first episode of this season, without having seen any of the previous one. There's some appalling writing going on here, and not only are the crew unprepared, they're just bloody stupid.

Security guard doesn't run as soon as he sees giant lizardy bits thrashing about in front of him? No hard-wired mammalian reflexes there?

The manager of the shopping arcade comes in after hearing one of his security guys screaming down the phone, and then happily chats to a squad of gun-toting fashionistas without questioning who they are until they're gone?

Trendy guy goes out by himself to fetch himself a slush-puppy when there's a dinosaur on the loose tearing things all to bits?

They hoist the tranqualised wee S-club into the middle of the bowling alley and in the next scene they find themselves halfway across the mall, in a security room, with no idea who was meant to be looking after her? Then get surprised at the fact that the dinosaur tries to munch her?

I'm not generally a very nitpicky sort and I don't like pissing on other people's glee-ons, but it's inexcusably bad plotting. The writers are trying to shoehorn in the expected pacing of a bit of prime-time dramatic telly (CHASE! FRIGHT! lull. PERIL!) without bothering to give five minutes thought justifying or emotionally grounding ANY of it. How can the characters be relieved at saving Ms-Club from the dinosaur when it looks like they've done nothing but actively go out of their way to get her ett?

Going by that episode, it looks to me like hack-work of the lowest order. I did think the anomaly graphic was very pretty though.

01:54 / 26.01.08

Ok I'll admit the nitty gritty plotting may be a little off but I watched the first series on DVD with very low expectations, and got interested in the overall arcing plot.

Without that to fall back on I can see how lame the show might looks.

Still it's my current guilty pleasure so I'll keep on watching.